Video games on broadcast television might seem like an alien concept in 2026 (we have YouTube and Twitch now), but back in the 1990s, several hit shows aired worldwide with interactive entertainment at their core.
Here in the UK, GamesMaster was the biggest show of its kind, with Bad Influence, Thumb Bandits and Games World being other notable examples.
The latter ran from 1993 to 1998 (with a short gap between 1995 and 1998) and saw members of the British public compete against The Videators – outlandish characters skilled at the latest and greatest video games of the era – and each other.
English actor, comedian, writer and television personality David Walliams starred as Lesley Luncheonmeat, the sidekick of Videator Big Boy Barry (played by Alex Verrey, who is legitimately one of the nicest people you will meet in the world of video game PR, and currently runs Overload PR in London. Walliams, on the other hand, is apparently less likeable these days). Former games journalist (and all-round good egg) Martin Mathers was also part of the line-up, and Dave "The Games Animal" Perry was one of the co-commentators.
Games World aired on Mondays and Wednesdays, where gamers would compete to star in the week's big Friday showdown. More than a few famous faces appeared on this show as youngsters – YouTube sensation Guru Larry being one of the most notable – but what you might not be aware of is the fact that Video game historian and Time Extension contributor John Szczepaniak once appeared on Games World, too – and he's launched a campaign to track down footage of his appearance.
"I've been going through my old VHS tapes, and found the one where I was on Games World. Except it's the one where I lost," he explains. "I was on the show in 1998, the same Aztec season as Guru Larry. I came on, lost in the beat-em-up round, and then they called me back to come on the episode where five people who had been thrown in the pit climbed out to compete again. That one I actually won and was champion of the week!"
Unfortunately for Szczepaniak, he didn't have a Sky One satellite subscription back then and therefore wasn't able to watch his appearance on the show live. "My dad got a mate of his from work to record episodes, based on the times and dates they said it would air. We got the first batch, where I lost. But then they changed the air dates for later episodes, so despite recording multiple episodes, they never saw my episode and eventually gave up."
This led Szczepaniak to assume that his triumph never actually made it into the broadcast show, until he was informed a few weeks later that someone at school had seen it – but, by then, it was too late to record it for posterity.
"For 30 years, I have never seen the episodes where I won," he explains. "I've emailed people on YouTube who uploaded episodes, and the 1998 season is quite rare. Guru Larry only has the episodes he was on. The company that made it no longer exists. My only hope is someone somewhere has a tape."
Szczepaniak – who visited Japan over a decade ago for his utterly peerless book project on Japanese video game developers – has come up with a unique solution for this problem. "I want to offer a £100 bounty for anyone who brings me the full set of episodes where I win – not the one where I lose, as I have that footage already. This would have been broadcast towards the end of the series, and I was wearing a blue shirt." He adds that, should anyone find the footage, he's happy to digitise it himself if they mail him the tape.
Do you have access to this footage? Perhaps you were a huge Games World fan and religiously recorded each episode? It might be time to dig through the vaults and find out – a whopping one hundred notes could be yours!
